chef_chocobro | MHA #18; Saturday Evening [10/07].

Even though it seemed like this week had provided copious examples of attempts to the contrary, it turned out that Ignis actually couldn't spend all his spare time with Liliana and would, in fact, spend time with other people, too. Well, with the other person he spent all of his spare time with. He certainly wouldn't want to overstay his welcome, and they were both clearly the sort of people who had lives beyond the blissful bubble of each other's company that they'd come to discover and had other things to do that day...

...Well, it seemed Liliana did, anyway. Ignis...had a make-up training session to attend to to appease his roommate, after which there was to be take-out because he was quite frankly a little exhausted and wanted to unwind a little with food made by someone else for a change and a glass of wine. And to at least make a marginal attempt to distract himself from wanting to be somewhere else and in different company again already.

No offense, of course, to Gladio.

"So," said Gladio from the couch, no doubt already leaving dusting of rice from his take-out container around where he sat, "what should I put on? Cooking shows to make you mad, or sports shows to make me mad?"

Okay, he took that back. Some offense to Gladio, after all.

[[ for those who know who they are and with some helpful little morsels of OCD like the rice Iggy'll find in the couch cushions later; CW for someone almost fucking dying ]]

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Usually, Stark got glimpses of things from those whose deaths he attended to. Flashes of memories. Pieces of them to carry with him for the rest of his days. That was what it meant to be a Stykera. You helped them cross over to the other side and they left a part of themselves behind within you.

Being so firmly within memories, if that's what this was, wasn't the natural order of these things. This felt too strong. This felt too strange.

He would have stumbled back, if he could, but he was kneeling and he was busy.

Maybe, as an idea, he could be less busy? That seemed like it would be super good for everybody.

"I am of the Onakke," he said, his voice so deep that it was heard as much as felt, a vibration in the bones. He held up a shield large enough to cover his chest, made of some black metal and decorated with bones. More bones formed a necklace around his thick throat and hung at his waist. "Guardian of the dead. Here to stop you. You must stop. You must close the door. You may not have the vessel."

Whispers started, hundreds of voices rising up, a loud susurration that made eyes water and jaws clench. "...nurtured the root...strong enough...the vessel..." they whispered. "...hallowed earth...the void's first breath..."

The whispers did not stop, just got louder and more insistent until they were all that he could hear, a wave of "the vessel...the vessel is ours...the vessel...shut the door...SHUT THE DOOR...SHUT THE DOOR" that tried to swallow him, that crested and broke--

And when it did, they shifted, displaced by the hubbub of an outdoor marketplace situated in a deep green jungle. As darkness settled over the jungle, Onakke merchants and artificers were packing up their goods and starting to disperse. Stark saw spectacular artistry in every booth and cart, the work of artisans whose awkward size belied their incredible talent. Delicate handiwork, from chainmail so finely knitted it looked like satin to jewelry that gave the impression of never ending fractals to woven images that looked ready to step off the fabric and into the real world.

For a moment, all was peaceful and quiet. But that moment didn't last. Ogres paused, looked around, cocked their heads to listen. Then Stark heard it, too, a low roar in the distance, but growing louder with each second. Across the square, he saw one ogre running wild-eyed out of the jungle, shouting words he couldn't make out as those nearest to her dropped their goods and launched into a mad scramble.

The running ogre fell on her face, but her body sloshed forward as if melted, turning into a black smear on the ground around a scattering of bones. And around her roiled a purplish cloud that washed over the remains and surged onward, extending new tendrils ahead of it as though it were dragging itself along the ground.

And every ogre it touched suffered the same deliquescent fate. A touch. Screams of agony. And then they hit the ground, liquefying into puddles of black goo.

It was over in minutes. In just minutes, the marketplace was gone, the roiling fog covering its Onakke victims, the stately buildings, swallowing the hubbub of life and leaving only the horror of death.

And the whispers returned. "...swallowed up...annihilation..."

And the scene changed again.

Stark wasn't trying to take any vessels! Stark was just trying to do what he was born to do and help the dying.

He was aware that his body was still kneeling beside Liliana but he was unable to move. He was unable to do anything besides watch the unfolding horrors being presented to him.

He might have let out a whimper but any sound he made was too far away for his own ears to hear.

Now he was in the devastated remains of a sick room. If he had shown up in any other area, that might have been where his attention had gone, to the room that had clearly been the scene of a horrible battle, bodies in servant uniforms torn asunder, their faces contorted in horror and pain.

But the memory actually put him was flat against the wall, and in front of him was a nightmare creature, once a young man but now a horror. His eyes were black and glossy and sunk back into his skull, and his pale skin now gray, and waxy and tight. His cheekbones jutted from his face and his lips were drawn back away from his teeth. Gashes had been raked down his chest, possibly with his own nails, but no blood spilled. He had his hands stretched out, reaching for Stark, and engulfing him in shadow. Claws of darkness clutched at Stark's body, lifting him from the ground and snatching at the motes of life and strength that remained in his body. He choked as shadows reached into his mouth, seizing the breath right out of his lungs. He felt as cold as death itself, suffocating as though he'd been buried alive, trapped in the viselike grip of this monster's magic.

And reflected in that creature's eyes was the reflection of a young teen girl, with pale skin, long black hair, and wide, horrified, violet eyes.

""The Void will have you, Lili. Its hunger will never die. It will have us both."

He stood right in front of Stark now, looking up into his eyes, his clawlike hands upraised as if they, not his spell, were holding the alien in the air and squeezing the life from him.

"Join me, Lili," he crooned. "All the torment of the Void will be ours to share forever."

"This isn't right," Stark forced out, gritting his teeth. "What is this?" Whether he said it only in his mind or whether his body echoed the sentiment he couldn't be sure.

And then he was being squeezed too tightly and it was too cold and everything was wrong and his body certainly let out a strangled noise. Loud enough to be noticed by the others in the room, certainly.

Did the glow from his unmasked face flicker or was that merely a trick of the light?

"I think that's about enough of that." A smooth and urbane voice caused the memory to pause. "Allow my Lili-flower to keep some secrets. She's so guarded of her mystique."

This man was tall and had a noble air, dressed in a suit of black and gold that showed no signs of his passage through the trees and brambles. White hair crowned his head, tousled by his hood, but the hair at his temples was black and swept back over his ears. His eyes—strangely gold, like the embroidery on his clothing—seized and held her gaze.

"Vessel of destruction...Root of evil...Our vess--"

Around the strange man, the memories shattered and the chorus of howling voices was cut off at once. "You're giving her to him, you know. I'd really rather you didn't, if it's all the same to you." He smiled. "In fact, I must insist. We have plans for her. And those plans don't involve her soul being fed to the void."

Stark gasped for air as he watched this newcomer.

"I'm not giving her to anyone else and I'm certainly not feeding her to anything," he protested weakly. "I...she needed help."

"He waits for her, past the doorway," the golden-eyed man said. "Can't you feel him reaching for her? She needed healing."

"She was already going," Stark said. "I could feel it! This was all there was left for me to do!"

"She's the Mistress of Death," the golden-eyed man said with a shrug. "She would have gotten over her squeamishness and healed herself."

He gave Stark a crooked smile. "In fact, she still might."

And then he disappeared and Stark was free in his own mind once again.

MHA #18; Saturday Evening [10/07].

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind

Re: ...Inside Stark's Mind